Distant Galaxy Cluster

This distant galaxy cluster was discovered using data from the space-based Spitzer Space Telescope and the ground-based Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Ariz. The cluster appears as a concentration of red dots near the center of the image. This image reveals the galaxies as they were over 8 billion years ago, since that's how long their light took to reach Earth and Spitzer's infrared eyes.

The picture is a composite, combining ground-based optical images captured by the Mosaic-I camera on the Mayall 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak, with infrared pictures taken by Spitzer's infrared array camera. Blue and green represent visible light at wavelengths of 0.4 microns and 0.8 microns, respectively, while red indicates infrared light at 4.5 microns.

Kitt Peak National Observatory is part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tuscon, Ariz.

The Spitzer Space Telescope is a NASA mission managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This website is maintained by the Spitzer Science Center, located on the campus of the California Institute of Technology and part of NASA's Infrared Processing and Analysis Center.